The Saurian wizard paced back and forth. He had survived his lord's wrath by assuring the overlord that he would come up with another plan to be rid of the mage. While that allowed him to escape, it didn't mean he could just hide in his workroom forever. He had to come up with something and soon.
Wraith racked his brain to come up with any idea. As long as the mage had The Phoenix at her command, she was even more indestructible than any normal mage would be. A frontal assault would never work. He would have to come up with something that was subtle, something that Dragaunus could understand and would be willing to support. The overlord could do subtle if he put his mind to it, but more often than not, he preferred to be sneaky followed by the 'pound your enemy flat' method of dealing with a problem.
A plan involving being subtle that wouldn't set off her magical defenses wasn't going to be easy. It most certainly would leave Siege and Chameleon out of it. Those two were as subtle as an avalanche.
The wizard glared at the two remaining feathers in their protective bubbles. They would allow him find her general vicinity, but that wasn't necessary. She usually ended up on the evening news as the humans tried to figure out who she was and what she was doing there. No need to waste a feather on what the humans were doing for free.
The feathers could also allow him to get past some of her defenses, provided it wasn't something that would hurt her directly. Maybe something that would interfere with her sleep or caused her to see things that weren't there. Those plans were subtle, but required a good deal of power and were very complicated.
"There's a snake in my boot," a voice proclaimed from the corridor.
Wraith groaned. Chameleon was playing with that stupid doll he had found the other day. The shape changer enjoyed pulling the string on the back of the foolish thing and making it play back one of several recorded messages. The wizard was sure Chameleon had been dropped on his head as a youngling. Repeatedly.
"Somebody's poisoned the waterhole," the recorded voice stated.
Wraith was about to go out and blast the smaller Saurian when he suddenly had an epiphany. He needed something subtle. The right type of poison could be very subtle.
Wildwing sat and watched her for a minute. She couldn't leave until the job was done and he couldn't just let her do the job alone. The question was whether or not to bring in the rest of the team.
The team captain mulled it over for a while. With the rest of the team there, and with proper equipment, they would get the job done in no time. However, with the rest of the team's animosity toward her, it was a disaster waiting to happen. In the end, he decided to leave the others out of it unless he had no other choice.
As Wildwing collected their garbage and put it back in his bag, he saw the salamander sitting nearby. The duck turned his attention to the creature and saw it glaring at him. The tip of its tail twitched impatiently, not unlike a dissatisfied cat.
Wildwing finished cleaning up and started to head back to his bike to put the bag away. However, his way was blocked by a hissing Elemental. When he tried to go around, the salamander moved with him. He even tried stepping over it and nearly got singed in an inopportune place for his trouble.
He marched back to the meadow with the salamander in hot pursuit. The large white duck stomped up to her and she looked up at him in surprise. He tried not to notice that even covered in dirt, she was pretty.
"What are you still doing here?" she asked.
"I was trying to take my bag back to my bike, but your pet decided I wasn't going anywhere," he fumed right before he jumped. "OW!"
Wildwing turned and glared at the little beast as he rubbed his backside.
"Ok, first off, he's not my pet," she stated, trying not to laugh and really trying not to stare at the well shaped posterior that was at eye level. "Secondly, I really can't control him. He's an Elemental. He does what he wants."
"So why is he hanging around with you?" he demanded. "He was hiding in your bag earlier."
"He's not old enough to take care of himself yet," she reminded him while she went back to her digging. "As far as I know, there are no other salamanders who are currently active. Even if there are, there's no guarantee that they'd want to raise him. As for him hiding in my bag, if I could have, I would have been in there with him. The earth Elemental is extremely old and very powerful and every time I see him I'm afraid I'm going to molt right on the spot."
"Was that who you were talking to earlier?" he asked as he tossed his bag next to hers.
"You didn't see him?" she questioned.
"You were talking to thin air as far as I could tell," he answered as he got down on his knees.
"Figures he decided to hide from you while we were talking," she grumbled. "He seems to get some sick thrill at driving me crazy. What are you doing?"
"Helping," he stated as he dug his hands into the dirt.
"You don't have to, even if the salamander is being a pain," she said as she continued to dig.
"I know," he replied. "I want to help. I'm the one who ordered the team out here and we did some damage to the drones, so it's partially my fault too. We may not have been able to do the damage you did, but it wasn't for lack of trying on our part."
"You want to help?" she questioned with an eyebrow raised.
"Ok, I don't really want to bake in the sun digging in the dirt," he grumbled. "But I do feel partially responsible for the mess, so here I am."
"And the rest of the team?" she inquired, sounding a bit defensive.
"Back at the Pond or at the mall or wherever," he replied. "They don't know where I am, just that I wanted some time to think and that I'll be back tonight. I won't call them in unless we can't get this place cleaned up on our own. So, what exactly are we doing?"
"I'm trying to find the edge to this piece of metal," she sighed. "Once I find the edge, I can use my powers to bring it up."
He looked down into the hole she had created and saw a large slab of melted and twisted metal several inches under the dirt. It was hard to tell that this had once been dozens of hunter drones. There was very little that was recognizable.
"If you're looking for the edge, why not try closer to the side of the meadow?" he asked.
"I'm hoping to find where I was standing when I did this," she explained. "It'll be easier to get the thing up from near the middle than the side."
"Um, you weren't standing when you melted those drones," he started.
"I certainly wasn't laying down."
"No, you were floating."
"I was what?"
"Floating. Don't you remember?"
"That part of the evening I was a little hazy on," she softly admitted.
"You don't remember floating several feet off of the ground and melting dozens of drones?"
"The melting part I remember, but the floating, not so much so."
"How do you not remember floating?" he demanded. "When you stopped glowing you fell a couple feet!"
"Long story," she grumbled and turned her back to him.
By the stiffness of her back and the way she was digging into the dirt, Wildwing figured it would be best to let her calm down a bit. He turned his attention back to the sizable hole in the dirt that she had already created. The slab of metal that used to be who knows how many hunter drones was a twisted, fused mess.
He tried to see if he could break a chunk off, but it was thick enough that it didn't even move when he hit it. If he was going to help dig this thing out, he was going to need some type of tool. While Ruby's hands seemed to be impervious to any sharp edges, his weren't.
Wildwing knew there weren't any tools in the bike, so he was going to have to find something else. Maybe a stick would do, but he didn't see any laying under the trees. He was thinking of going to find a sturdy branch by going further into the trees when he saw the salamander go by.
The strange creature had a small piece of metal in its mouth and was headed toward the pile of metal Ruby had already extracted. A moment later, the salamander spit out it's load and went scurrying back across the meadow. That just might do.
Wildwing got to his feet, brushed his knees off and headed toward the pile. It took him a few minutes to find a piece of metal that wasn't either too large or too small or too twisted or too thin. The edge was a bit sharp, but he should be able to work with that.
He turned to head back and nearly tripped over the salamander. Wildwing tried to go around the little pest, but once more the salamander got in the duck's way. Wildwing turned to walk toward Ruby, but the salamander just got in his way again.
"What do you want?" Wildwing demanded in frustration.
Put back, a voice in his head growled back.
"What the heck!?" Wildwing yelped in surprise.
"He wants you to put the piece of metal back," Ruby explained from her spot in the middle of the meadow.
"He can talk?" Wildwing nearly squeaked.
"Of course he can talk," she chuckled. "You had no problem with me arguing with an invisible earth Elemental, but you can't wrap your mind around the fact that the salamander can talk?"
"I thought the Elementals could only talk to you," he tried to defend while he held onto the piece of metal he had chosen.
"Elementals talk to whomever they want," she told him.
"Great," he grumbled as he tried to go around the flaming beast again.
The salamander launched himself at the duck. With a shout of surprise, Wildwing stumbled back a couple steps. He expected the salamander to attack him, but instead, he found the small Elemental hanging from the piece of metal in his hand. Wildwing tried shaking the little monster off.
"Let go!"
Put back!
"Let go!"
Put back!
"Let go!"
Put back!
He continued trying to shake the little beast off, but the salamander was stuck to the piece of metal as if he were glued to it. Wildwing turned to Ruby for help and found her doubled over on the ground holding her stomach. In worry, he dropped the salamander and the chunk of metal and rushed to her side.
His concern for her quickly turned to embarrassment and anger. Ruby was laughing so hard she could barely breathe and tears were leaving trails in the dirt on her beak. Wildwing was sorely tempted to leave while the mage gasped for breath. Still snickering, she finally sat up.
"I'm sorry," she wheezed as she wiped the tears from her beak, leaving behind muddy streaks. "I haven't seen anything that funny in a very, very long time."
He didn't trust himself to not say something rude, so Wildwing kept his beak shut.
"What do you need the scrap for?" she asked when she was finally able to breathe properly again.
"I was going to use it as a makeshift shovel," he grumbled. "You may be indestructible, but I'm not."
"Ok, that makes sense," she said as she tried to keep from giggling from the memory.
Ruby cast her gaze at the pile of metal and started laughing again. Wildwing looked to see what had set her off and he had to try not to start snickering himself. The salamander was sitting on top of the pile, crouched over it like a dragon protecting its gold hoard, his tail swishing back and forth in agitation.
"Oh for the love of little green apples," she sighed with the occasional chuckle. "You silly beast, he's not trying to steal it. He needs a piece to help me clean up this mess. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can leave."
The salamander was having none of it. He sat on that pile, glaring at Wildwing. He even spat out a small gob of fire to back up his claim that this was his pile of scrap metal. Fortunately, anything that might have been flammable had long since been buried under the torn up dirt.
"You might want to just find another piece," she told Wildwing. "That pile is just pieces we found in the meadow. I'm sure there are more up on the hill and under the trees."
"Sounds like a plan," he muttered unhappily.
Wildwing turned and headed into the trees, not far from where he and his team had come down the other night. He collected several pieces of twisted metal, looking for one that might work. He always thought he and his team were good at destroying hunter drones, but they had nothing on her.
Wildwing had to keep reminding himself that as nice as she seemed to be, she was capable of wiping them all out. He forced himself to remember how easy it was for her to defeat him and his team. The absolute humiliation she brought them time and again should have been enough of a reminder that she couldn't be trusted.
He brought an armload of scrap metal to the edge of the clearing and dropped them on the ground. He refused to look at her toiling away under the late June sun. She was still the enemy. So why did he keep getting this insane urge to want to take care of her?
He found more bits and pieces and collected them. He brought them over to the pile he had started and dropped them. After a couple trips, he realized that the pile he was making wasn't as big as it should have been.
He headed back through the trees, but instead of gathering up more of the scraps, he hid behind a tree and watched. He didn't have to wait long. A few moments after Wildwing had hidden himself, the salamander crept over to the pile of twisted metal pieces that Wildwing had collected.
The little Elemental crawled all over the pile until he found a piece that he liked. As soon as the selection was made, he latched onto it with his mouth and started to drag it over to the other pile. Wildwing would have been upset if the absolute ridiculousness of watching this creature that wasn't any bigger than his forearm and hand trying to drag something that probably weighed as much as the salamander did.
Wildwing just shook his head and and went back to finding more of the waste metal in hopes of finding one that would be suitable for his needs. By the time he located something that could be usable, he had pretty much cleared that area and had a fairly good sized pile made, despite the salamander's filching.
The duck headed back out into the meadow, pretending that he didn't see the salamander waiting under a bush. He got back down on his knees next to the hole she started and started to scrape away the dirt using what appeared to be part of the chest piece of a drone. In no time his shoulders let Wildwing know what they thought of the unusual activity, but it didn't stop him.
Even with the help of a tool, it still took Wildwing some time to reach the edge of the slab of metal. His wings felt like they wanted to fall off and his shoulders were screaming in protest. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and looked at where she was.
It appeared that she was still trying to find a hole in the middle of the metal slab. He just shook his head and widened the area around the edge he found. After making sure that he had a good sized section cleared, he stopped digging.
"I found the edge," he called.
Ruby turned to look at him and his breath caught in his chest. More of her hair had escaped the ponytail and she was practically covered in dirt, but she was still really pretty. He gave himself a good, hard mental shake when he realized he was staring. What was wrong with him?
"I guess that will have to do," she sighed as she came to her feet. "I'm not having any luck finding a hole in the middle of this thing."
Ruby walked toward him. Wildwing tried really hard not to notice the sway of her hips. He moved his gaze up her body, but got stuck before he even got to her neck. What was wrong with him?
The male barely managed to get himself together before she noticed. He quickly moved out of her way when she got to the hole he made. She turned her back to him and then bent over at the waist as she got her hands under the metal.
"You should bend your knees and lift with your legs," he instructed, his voice catching in his throat.
"Are you all right?" she asked as she bent her knees.
"Just a bit thirsty," he answered, relieved that her jean clad backside was no longer waving in the air in front of him.
"Maybe you should have something to drink," she suggested while she got a better grip on the edge of the metal sheet.
"Sounds like a good idea," he replied.
He started to head to his bag, passing right behind her with the chest plate still in his hand. It brushed against her as he went by and she gasped in shock. He turned back to see her staring at the piece of metal in his hand.
"What is that?" she questioned, the nervousness evident in her voice.
"It looks like a chest piece from one of the drones," he responded.
"May I see it, please?" she requested, her voice with a strange edge to it.
"Sure."
He handed it to her, noticing that her hand was shaking when she reached for it. There was a sharp intake of breath when her hand touched the metal. He couldn't understand why this piece of metal upset her. She had been digging out a huge chunk of the same metal all day and hadn't any problems with it.
"Are you all right?" he asked, worried about her reaction.
"Not really," she whispered as the salamander came running up to her.
Before he could ask what was wrong, she put the metal down in front of the small Elemental and pointed to it. The intense heat the creature suddenly radiated made Wildwing step back in surprise. In a matter of moments, the chest piece he had been using was molten metal on the ground.
"Why'd you do that?" he demanded.
"Did you still need it?" she asked.
"I don't know, maybe," he responded, clearly upset.
"I'm sorry," she replied as she turned back to the buried sheet of metal. "I'm sure you can find another."
The tone of her voice told him that as unhappy with her as he was, she was even more upset. The thing was, he couldn't understand why.